In previous posts I mentioned the auto accident my husband was in. The last week has been nothing but recovery and waiting. I have posted before how hard it can be to live with someone who has PTSD and how each day can be trying. I have learned a lot in the last few days just how trying each day can be.
Since my husband returned from Afghanistan his attitude has been so hot and cold. He can be fine one minute and a huge jerk the next. I have learned to recognize these moods to help alleviate any stress in the family. I try to remain quiet when he decides to freak out about nothing but I will tell you it has been so hard to remain quiet this last week.
Most of the last week my husband has been in and out of it. Meaning that he has had few moments where he has been alert and coherent. I have tried to let him rest as much as possible not just for his benefit but for mine as well. The reason for that is simple when he has been awake he has been demanding, short tempered, and crabby. I have made comments in past posts about his need to be right all the time but this last week has been challenging to say the least. Lets start with our trips to the doctor and the hospital. My husband has always thrown in my face that he is a better driver. He insists that I could never in my life drive as well as he does. So imagine how it feels when he is partially coherent and can't even keep his eyes open yet he is sitting in the passengers seat telling me that I need to stop swerving and stay in my lane. I tried several times to tell him that I was driving just fine yet he refused to listen. In fact he just got more adamant and rude telling me he should drive. This has been happening every time we get into the car. It takes so much strength and self control to not lose my cool on him. I just remind myself that he can't help it.
Along with his need to dissect my driving he has been in a foul mood overall. Now I expect this to an extent since he was in a horrible accident but this goes beyond that. My husband has always been a worker he can't stand being home for no reason. So having to be on bed rest he tends to get very cranky. For the last week he has been so difficult to deal with. Every time I try to do something for him he gets crabby and yells at me.
When someone has gone through something as traumatic as my husband has you can make excuses as to their behaviors because you understand what they are going through, but what has me the most concerned is that in addition to his PTSD from the last year he seems to be suffering an added PTSD from the accident. He tends to have reactions to riding not only does he yell at me, he gets sick to his stomach, his head aches flare up and he can't sit still. He gets very uneasy in the car now. Not only that but he has told me that his lack of sleep has gotten worse and it takes medication to get him to sleep and that only works part of the time. When he does sleep he has very weird dreams making it hard for him to get any decent rest.
Today we went to see his PCM to find out what all is wrong with him and I told her how concerned I am about his PTSD and what this accident has done to it. She agreed that something like that can cause more trauma and added stress to his PTSD; it will just be a matter of time to see exactly how much worse he is going to be. All of this and we still don't know the full extent of his injuries.
My point in telling you all this is two fold. The first is that most anything can make PTSD worse. Never just assume that the way they are now is how they are going to stay. In this world there can be any number of things that can make their PTSD worse and more difficult for us as spouses to understand. The second is to let you know that there may be breaks in how often I post, until things settle down I may be sporadic in my posts. My first priority is to take care of my soldier.
Thanks for your patience and for all the prayers for my husband and our family.
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